


Things You Said

by wellthatsood



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: F/F, F/M, Ficlet Collection, M/M, One Shot Collection, Request Meme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6309562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellthatsood/pseuds/wellthatsood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ficlets from the "Things You Said" writing prompt meme, stored in one convenient location mostly for my own organizational wellbeing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things You Said That I Wish You Hadn't

**Author's Note:**

> Charlie/Meyer: Things You Said That I Wish You Hadn't (requested by besmirchthis)

It’s late and dark, with the night slipping in through the window as Charlie curls himself closer to the man beside him. His eyes are drooping—with fatigue, rather than just the usual slope that still startles Meyer with a harsh reminder, but he won’t let Charlie know. The air between them is stale with the whiskey on their breath, which comes in ever-slowing draws. There’s a warmth, a stability, a weightlessness in lying in the dark, as though by closing their eyes they could escape. 

Charlie stirs, shifts nearer, his arm creeping lazily across the arch of Meyer’s hip. “Don’t know what I’d do without you, Mey,” he mutters with a fond smile that strikes ice through Meyer’s gut. Charlie’s breathing turns to an even, heavy rhythm not long after. Meyer lies awake through the night, replaying words that are too sleepy, too honest, that Charlie won’t remember in the morning. 

But Meyer always remembers. The words settle like a pulse beneath his skin. He forgets they are there—the lifeblood vanishing under other cares, other worries—but he feels the words rising again to a violent pitch as his heart hammers and mind clouds. The world blurs with Charlie’s forgotten words, as the trial comes to the end they all expected but wouldn’t believe. He can’t help but remember each time he visits—less often than he should, but guilt separates them more than bars and cement—and he sees the blank darkness behind his eyes, the dips carved in his once full face, the haggard weight that settles on his shoulders. 

On the docks, with a forced joviality in the air that strikes as harsh a note as the incessant call of gulls, Meyer remembers. As he pays his farewells, Charlie grins and Meyer wants to believe it. He hopes it will be better at last, that those long ago words have lost their truth, that Charlie has learned from practice what to do without him. But he sees the resolve waver for just a moment, as they say goodbye, and he remembers that being taught and learning are not the same thing. 

He wishes he never heard the words. They ring in his ears and give life to what Meyer always knew but would rather ignore: _“I don’t know what to do without you, Charlie.”_


	2. Things You Said When You Were Drunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Margaret/Carolyn: Things You Said When You Were Drunk (requested by besmirchthis)

It’s rage that induces her to pry open the bottle. It’s indignant, seething _hate_ that she tastes as she tosses her head back. The glass meets her lip; the alcohol burns in her throat, but its effect is nothing by comparison. Her face betrays nothing but a stiff grimace, her fingers curling tighter around the smooth curve of the glass as she stares with contempt at the empty tea cup—adorned with a ring of red lipstick—left on her side table. 

She should shatter it, throw the cup to the wall and watch the pieces splinter, fall away in fragments of what it had once been. Instead she drinks again, wincing. Her meeting with Margaret flickers behind her lids, in fractured images she can’t drink down. She sees both the fright in those eyes—those expressive brown eyes—as well as the resolve and the strength, the will to match her wit for wit. No wonder Arnold had been so keen. They always did share many of the same tastes. 

The burning, churlish anger slips from her grasp, its escape greased with each passing sip. She could only hold her own resolve for so long. Something still burns beneath her skin, a restless discontent she can never quiet. She stands suddenly and the room spins with her. She wanders— _wobbles_ —to the window, drawn to it as though she might recapture the images, as though the slight shoulders and keen eyes and pursed lips might still be staring up at her from the sidewalk. It’s dark as she leans her forehead against the cool glass. She sees nothing. 

Carolyn drops the glass onto the table, her own lipstick ring smudged against the surface. She follows the motion down, until she’s slouched in the armchair with her head resting back. “She’s something, this one,” she whispers to no one.


	3. Things You Didn't Say At All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gillian/Gyp: Things You Didn't Say At All (requested by besmirchthis)

_You could have been useful._

The word’s drifted bitterly through her mind, through the haze that lingered beneath her skin, as she heard the news and heard of the resolution that passed her by entirely—as though she were only the pawn cast aside, never to be remade as second queen. 

_Just listen to me. I’ll make you useful.  
_

His violence needed no cause, and she gave him the opportunity. But surely no one could be so stupid as to miss her meaning, to blow the boardwalk wide open and achieve nothing but debris? What good was destruction—vile, contemptible destruction, the taste of a powder keg on his lips—that left everything intact? There was blood through the halls, men dead—and worse, a house _empty_ , of everything that mattered. 

_You should have listened to me you great, stupid animal._

He was supposed to be _her_ trick, _her_ ploy, her victorious demolition that she unleashed on them all. But he was stupid and he didn’t listen, too busy filling his head with his own buzzing, frantic, edge-of-the-cliff incendiaries. Too busy imagining her past affairs—as though he had any claim to jealousy anyway—when he should have seen her burning hatred, her past grievances, her _command_. She thought it was best to maintain her resolve, to never show an ounce of weakness—else he would slip away and flee, a dog let loose into the alley. 

But she should have ordered him outright. Maybe then, he would have listened.


	4. Things You Said When We Were On Top of the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charlie/Meyer: Things You Said When We Were On Top of the World (requested by meyerlansky)

The city sprawls out beneath them, gridded blocks of light tracing their rigid pattern as Charlie’s fingers spiral in sprawling circles across the skin of Meyer’s shoulder. The room has long since grown dark around them, neither bothering to turn on the light, instead letting the glow and glimmer of distant city lights seep through the parted curtains that Charlie never closes. He likes the view from the Waldorf. He likes to see it all beneath him.

A feeling of hope—of contentment even—bubbles inside him like the champagne still winding through his veins. There will never be peace in their lives, but for a moment there’s stillness. Euphoria is a short-lived burst like the kickback of a gun, but it settles into something quiet, something calm, something that for a moment says it’s behind them. It’s behind them at last.

“You and me, huh?” Charlie says, carding his fingers through Meyer’s hair.

He cranes his neck with an inquisitive look, kissing the underside of Charlie’s jaw. “What about us?” 

Charlie shrugs as best he can with Meyer’s weight settled on his chest. He doesn’t have much else to say—doesn’t have the words for it, really, because for all the language between their fingertips, they still haven’t made the words. Besides, the speeches have already been given, their toasts and promises made, but Meyer doesn’t need that, has never asked for it. 

He’ll still give him the city, give him the life that breathes through them both with the movement of each passing day, give him a sky that twinkles with the artificial starlight of a thousand buildings stretching up. He has it all; he thinks of the clockwork thrum of the city at his disposal, under his grasp. He thinks of the warm skin under his palm, the rise and fall of a small body curled against his; he has it all. 

“We’re here,” he finally offers. 

“We are here,” Meyer echoes, warm amusement as he settles back into the curve of Charlie’s neck. Their fingers find each other, knit together. Meyer squeezes his hand; Charlie brushes his shoulder; their conversation continues through this.  

And it’s simple and it’s short and it’s so much in so little. They’re alive, together, curled in the warm darkness of the Waldorf and blanketed by the lights of a city they own. Too different, too the same, too much of everything that shouldn’t exist. 

But it does. But they do. And they will.


	5. Things You Said When You Were Drunk (II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charlie + Benny: Things You Said When You Were Drunk (requested by meyerlansky) 
> 
> [Note: I used Italian instead of Sicilian because the latter is impossible to find translations for online, but you get the point]

It’s just the two of them that night.

It’s slow, boring, _Wednesday_. Nothing is happening and they’re both left with the restlessness that something should.

Charlie pours two drinks, shoves one into Benny’s hand without asking. Benny raises an eyebrow, followed by the glass in a salute. Instead of a toast, he offers only, “Fuck Havana, right?” before downing half the glass. 

Charlie smirks and returns the gesture. It goes down hot and smooth as Charlie settles back into his chair. “Don’t you got a wife or somethin’ you oughta go home to?”

Benny wipes his mouth on the back of his end. “Eh, she can wait. I’m busy.”

“Yeah,” Charlie answers, kicking his feet up onto the table with a heavy thunk. “Real busy.”

They don’t say much else as they finish their drinks. Benny watches the room; Charlie watches the inside of his glass. He swirls it, sips, stares, hears Benny sigh. Hears the clink of his nails rapping against the side of the glass. Hears that it’s empty.

Charlie looks up, scowls at Benny’s expectant expression. “You got fuckin’ legs, don’t you?”

“You’re the one who needs a pal to drink with,” Benny shoots back. “So drink the fuck up instead’a mopin’ around, how’s about?”

Charlie glares, but he raises the glass all the same and downs the rest of it. He holds out a hand for Benny’s empty glass, which he passes over with almost royal triumph. Charlie returns, glasses filled for round two.

Benny drinks faster again this time, eyes bright with an energy, a challenge, that he doesn’t need to say.

Charlie pours cheaper alcohol for round three—the kind they stock for the customers who don’t look like they can taste the difference anyway—and he’s finished half of it in transit before he’s even handed Benny his glass.

“You’re not playin’ fair,” Benny scolds, half out of his chair, arm extended and clawing at the glass. Charlie keeps it out of reach without breaking his lips from the rim of his own. Benny leaps for it, grabs it from Charlie’s hand, spills half of it on the floor, downs the rest and declares himself the winner.

“It don’t count when you’re spillin’ it all!” Charlie’s indignant voice is just a notch too loud.

“You hadda head start!”

“Then get it your own fuckin’ self!”

He expects another protest, but Benny grins wide and wicked, says “Fine!” and he’s pushing past Charlie at a run for the bar, traipsing right through the puddle of spilled alcohol without a backward glance.

Charlie’s right at his heels as soon as he can process what’s happening and soon they’re elbowing each other out of the way at the bar. “You’re gonna—you’re gonna—Shit, don’t knock it—”

Benny’s got a bony elbow in Charlie’s ribs, keeping him at bay as he pours and drinks and tries to keep the bottle from Charlie’s grasp all at the same time. He’s saying something, but it’s incomprehensible, as Benny’s drinking as fast as he can.

“Gimme the fuckin’—If you drop that shit—”

Benny’s pouring a fifth drink when Charlie hasn’t even had four and that’s how Benny finds the world suddenly turning just a bit horizontal as Charlie shoves him out of the way. He catches himself—barely—on the edge of the bar. Charlie’s laughing around the rim of his glass as he struggles to catch up before Benny can regain his footing. It’s slopping out and onto the surface of the bar— _clean it up_ , he thinks, _outdrink Benny_ , he thinks louder—and Benny’s scrambling for his own glass.

Thin fingers curl around the neck of the bottle, turn it upside down, and it takes a second of watching liquid amber pour right onto rich brown wood before it registers. Benny’s head snaps up. Charlie’s laughing, dangling Benny’s glass pinched between two fingers.

Benny lunges. Charlie laughs. Charlie slips. Glass breaks.

They both freeze and stare at the splinters across the floor.

“Well now you’ve done it,” Charlie says.

“ _Me?_ ” There’s a million and one words that follow, punctuated with “fuckin’” where a breath should be, as Charlie just shakes his head, squats, and drops the bigger chunks into the handkerchief spread over his hand.

The sound of Benny’s ranting doesn’t stop, but it grows fainter, then louder again, and Benny’s back with a broom.

Charlie ties the corners of the handkerchief together. Something in the back of his mind is telling him to stand up, but everything is a little too warm, a little too fuzzy. He sits on the ground, back against the bar, oblivious to the lack of propriety they’re showing. But the place is half-empty anyway; anyone around is either on their payroll or thinking with other brains that don’t pay attention to the men in the suits when there are women in less.

The thunk feels like it’s coming from another room as Charlie lets his head drop back against the bar. The laughter feels real though, like it’s coming from him. But it also sounds like Benny.

“C’mere _fratellino_ ,” Charlie slurs, slinging an arm around Benny’s neck and tugging him over.

“What’d you call me?” Benny demands, at what he assumes must be an insult.

“Means _you_ , asshole,” he answers as he rumples Benny’s hair with the hand that isn’t holding him prisoner.

Benny _hmphs_ and makes a half-hearted attempt at escape, shoving Charlie’s chest, but the crook of Charlie’s arm only pulls tighter. Benny resigns himself to going face-first into Charlie’s armpit.

The room is too hazy and warm, too heavy, or maybe it’s just their heads, alcohol sitting too thickly on tongues for them to speak. Benny mutters something; Charlie agrees. Neither of them is really sure what they said.

The night through the window starts to turn to grey early morning dusk. The last of their customers are finally on their way out the door. They both might have dozed.

“Go home _fratellino_ ,” Charlie mumbles behind a yawn. “Get some sleep or somethin’.”

Benny protests on principle even as he does as Charlie says. He clamors to his feet, dumps the bundle of broken glass into the trash on his way out. Hat dropped precariously onto his head, he’s blinking and bleary in the beginnings of morning sun while Charlie lingers inside.

A few days later, it’s tugging at the back of his mind like something he’s forgetting, something he can’t grasp. Something he oughta give Charlie shit for. He asks Frank what _fratellino_ means; Frank answers and asks why. Benny stares, then shrugs.

But the next time it’s just the two of them, Benny pours two drinks and hands one to Charlie. He gets up to pour a second round.


End file.
